Postern of Fate (Tommy and Tuppence Series) - Agatha Christie [68]
‘I don’t want anyone to be very pleased with me,’ said Tuppence. ‘I don’t like old Isaac being coshed on the head and killed like that.’
‘I suppose someone might have had it in for him,’ said Tommy.
‘Why should they?’ said Tuppence.
‘I don’t know,’ said Tommy.
‘No,’ said Tuppence, ‘and I don’t know either. But I just wondered if it’s anything to do with us.’
‘Do you mean–what do you mean, Tuppence?’
‘You know what I mean really,’ said Tuppence. ‘It’s this–this place. Our house. Our lovely new house. And garden and everything. It’s as though–isn’t it just the right place for us? We thought it was,’ said Tuppence.
‘Well, I still do,’ said Tommy.
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I think you’ve got more hope than I have. I’ve got an uneasy feeling that there’s something–something wrong with it all here. Something left over from the past.’
‘Don’t say it again,’ said Tommy.
‘Don’t say what again?’
‘Oh, just those two words.’
Tuppence dropped her voice. She got nearer to Tommy and spoke almost into his ear.
‘Mary Jordan?’
‘Well, yes. That was in my mind.’
‘And in my mind, too, I expect. But I mean, what can anything then have to do with nowadays? What can the past matter?’ said Tuppence. ‘It oughtn’t to have anything to do with–now.’
‘The past oughtn’t to have anything to do with the present–is that what you mean? But it does,’ said Tommy. ‘It does, in queer ways that one doesn’t think of. I mean that one doesn’t think would ever happen.’
‘A lot of things, you mean, happen because of what there was in the past?’
‘Yes. It’s a sort of long chain. The sort of thing you have, with gaps and then with beads on it from time to time.’
‘Jane Finn and all that. Like Jane Finn in our adventures when we were young because we wanted adventures.’
‘And we had them,’ said Tommy. ‘Sometimes I look back on it and wonder how we got out of it alive.’
‘And then–other things. You know, when we went into partnership, and we pretended to be detective agents.’
‘Oh that was fun,’ said Tommy. ‘Do you remember–’
‘No,’ said Tuppence, ‘I’m not going to remember. I’m not anxious to go back to thinking of the past except–well, except as a stepping-stone, as you might say. No. Well, anyway that gave us practice, didn’t it? And then we had the next bit.’
‘Ah,’ said Tommy. ‘Mrs Blenkinsop, eh?’
Tuppence laughed.
‘Yes. Mrs Blenkinsop. I’ll never forget when I came into that room and saw you sitting there.’
‘How you had the nerve, Tuppence, to do what you did, move that wardrobe or whatever it was, and listen in to me and Mr What’s-his-name, talking. And then–’
‘And then Mrs Blenkinsop,’ said Tuppence. She laughed too. ‘N or M and Goosey Goosey Gander.’
‘But you don’t–’ Tommy hesitated–‘you don’t believe that all those were what you call stepping-stones to this?’
‘Well, they are in a way,’ said Tuppence. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose that Mr Robinson would have said what he did to you if he hadn’t had a lot of those things in his mind. Me for one of them.’
‘Very much you for one of them.’
‘But now,’ said Tuppence, ‘this makes it all different. This, I mean. Isaac. Dead. Coshed on the head. Just inside our garden gate.’
‘You don’t think that’s connected with–’
‘One can’t help thinking it might be,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s what I mean. We’re not just investigating a sort of detective mystery any more. Finding out, I mean, about the past and why somebody died in the past and things like that. It’s become personal. Quite personal, I think. I mean, poor old Isaac being dead.’
‘He was a very old man and possibly that had something to do with it.’
‘Not after listening to the medical evidence this morning. Someone wanted to kill him. What for?’
‘Why didn’t they want to kill us if it was anything to do with us,’ said Tommy.
‘Well, perhaps they’ll try that too. Perhaps, you know, he could have told us something.